Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone!
Here are a few cuts which relate to things I listened to on my road-trip. First off, Patton Oswalt.
***WARNING - Naughty language!***
Patton Oswalt's best comedy bits are like this one, where he conveys a personal story. If you hear the story just for what it's worth, it's a good story, but it's more a family gathering/few guys around the table kind of story, not the MUST hear story everyone talks about. Patton Oswalt elevates a good story into an all timer. He effortlessly conveys the 'behind the scenes' portion of the story, and he turns the narrative from a 'that really happened' to a 'that's one of the funniest things I've ever heard!'
All praise quality comedians!
Also this road trip, we listened to the audio book version of 'Ready Player One.' Will Wheaton read the unabridged version of the book. He wasn't bad, but he at times sounded like Chandler from Friends with his snarky sarcastic tone, and I'm presuming he was told to read the scoreboard in it's entirety every time it was printed. That was unnecessary.
The book itself is VERY nerdy, and frankly not the best written. At times you could tell there was potentially a much better book which could've been written, but instead it wallowed in predictable characters and lazy creativity.
The rest of my family didn't like the constant pop culture references, but I was amazed at how researched the book was. It was really nerd centric. And the Canadian band Rush playing a major part kept me interested. Still, I found it impossible to believe people in 25 years would be fascinated and 'living' in a world 55-65 years old. It'd be like us in 2019 being crazy in love with everything from 1954. Some things from that time are still popular, but come on.
The movie which was released last year was a bit of a failure. Now I know why. The movie hardly followed the book at all, instead it focused on the relentless pop culture references and dumb plot points to get it to the big screen. In fairness, to make a movie like the book would at least require a two parter, but they could've done a lot better. If Marvel movies have taught the world anything it's that you don't have to convey the book word for word, but if you're somewhat loyal to to the source material you'll generally end up with a movie which succeeds.
How bad was the movie? Cinema Sins, in their 'Everything Wrong With' feature kept saying "I guess the book just doesn't matter." In the case of the movie, it sure didn't.
Then again, Spielberg did take a horrifically bad book in Jaws and turned it into a top movie of all time, so...
Drive safe everyone and have a great Labor Day weekend!
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